Chapter 6 #2
“You still think you have a chance with her, don’t you?” Will laughs between heaves from his bruised ribs. “A little advice, one freak to another, the bitch will never give it up. Not to the slum of—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish because Axl is there, sending an uppercut to his chin to shut him up. Will falls to the ground, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull. Axl leans over him, tilting his head as Will falls into unconsciousness.
I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s like the trajectory of my feelings throughout the night is about to burst inside my body.
Axl stands there, his knuckles cracked and bruising, his lips pulled in a mean snarl, and it’s like something snaps inside of me.
He suddenly looks like a dark angel, hovering above me and offering me salvation after a long time stuck underground.
I step forward and take his hand in mine.
His breathing is heavy, his gaze animalistic as he fights back the beast in his chest. It’s wild to see, because this man isn’t an alpha.
He’s a beta, like me, but there is nothing calm about him in this moment.
He’s as primal as any alpha I’ve ever seen, and it sends something hot steaming through my core.
“Ax…” I trail off as my hand moves to his chest, feeling the wild thrum of his heart. It seems to match my own, making every bit of logic and thought leave my body. He must feel it too, because his arm curves around me and he pulls me in, our lips meeting in a restless vigor.
Everything goes blank the second his skin hits mine, like a tidal wave taking me completely under.
I know my hands are traveling over his arms and reaching under his shirt to feather over his stomach.
I know this, but it’s like I’ve left my body and I’m standing to the side, watching.
I have never been in someone’s arms like this, not even Brent’s, and besides a few pecks here and there, I’ve never been so completely devoured by someone else’s lips either.
He picks me up, my legs wrapping around his waist. We end up on the hood of my car, my coat protecting me from the cold metal underneath.
We get lost in each other, so wrapped up that I don’t know where he ends and I begin.
Then, one of his hands travels up my thigh, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and a desperate sound escapes my lips without permission.
He doesn’t say anything, just as wretched as I am, as he captures my lips once more.
His fingers find my panties, guide them to the side, and then his index finger is there, feeling the evidence of arousal spilling from me at his touch.
He groans deeply into my mouth, a tiny growl emitting as he nips my bottom lip and adds more pressure, his fingers massaging.
My back arches, and I think I say something like please or more or maybe both, and then his fingers are entering me, filling me in a way that lights up every nerve ending, and I sigh with relief.
I didn’t know this was what I was missing. This… wholeness that is taking over my body and spinning me inside out.
“Fuck,” Axl whispers under his breath as his fingers move in and out of me.
I can only focus on the intense pleasure that the movement wrings from my body, how it pulls it right to the center under a spotlight for both of us to witness.
He nips at my neck, licks a line up to my ear, and then he hits something inside of me that makes me bellow with pleasure.
Holy—
It doesn’t take long from there. He hits that spot repeatedly, whispering something nasty in my ear that I don’t catch because I’m too lost to the sensation taking over my body.
“That’s it, Little Reckoning,” he whispers. “Give it to me.”
At the nickname he has for me, my body complies, practically bending in half as intense energy shoots through me.
I let out a scream before he covers my mouth with his hand, a satisfied grin tugging at his lips.
The feeling seems to go on forever, ebbs and flows, blazing through me as his fingers curl and release in perfect precision.
When the feeling finally dissipates, my body relaxes on the hood of the car with a quiet thump.
My mind comes back in waves, and I look around.
The trees are tall around us, the branches covering us like a canopy, and the scent of aroused lightning strikes me like a whip.
When I look down, his hands are on me, petting, and he’s whispering sweet nothings to me as I come back from my blacked-out high.
“Holy shit,” I say once I see Will still lying there unconscious, only spaces away.
“Don’t look at him,” Axl tells me, his voice soft.
“Did we… kill him?” I ask just above a whisper.
He lets out a dark chuckle in my hair. “No, no. He’s breathing. I promise.”
Everything crashes over me, like water waking up a sewer rat. I can still smell myself in the air, his fingers wet and idle on my thigh.
He just gave me my first ever orgasm, and he has no idea.
But I don’t have time to panic about what we just did, because police sirens sound from nearby before screaming ensues, people shouting out to warn everyone to get the hell out of there.
“Fuck,” I realize. “I can’t drive. I’ve been drinking.” I didn’t even know what I was going to do, but I don’t have time to fret over it, not when cops are on their way.
“I can drive you home,” Axl says.
“But… you drank too.” My brow goes up. “Didn’t you?”
He chuckles. “No. I, uh, I don’t drink.”
That surprises me. “What? Really?”
“Yeah, my mom died of alcohol poisoning.” He shrugs like it’s not a big deal, and my stomach drops. “So, I don’t really participate.”
I don’t know what I expected to hear, but it certainly wasn’t that. I swear I’ve seen him drink over the years, but I guess that was always an assumption. Not to mention, the rumor about Axl’s mom was that she dropped Axl off at his dad’s as a kid and then left. Not that she died.
I guess people don’t know everyone’s business in Greenwood as much as I thought.
“I like to smoke, but that’s it,” he continues. “Can I drive you home? We don’t have much time.”
As the sirens get louder, I realize he’s right. “Yeah, let’s go.”
It’s a quiet ride back into Greenwood. Well, besides Avril Lavigne playing softly on my radio. Axl accidentally turned it on and I was mortified, but if my choice in music surprised him, he didn’t say anything.
When we pull up onto the curb of my family’s suburban home, I feel more panicky than ever. He pulls his phone out and texts someone quietly.
“Is Ledger going to come get you?” I ask.
“Thank you again for getting me and my car home.” I can’t help but look over my shoulder in case my mom tries to peer through the curtains.
I lied to her about where I was going, and it wouldn’t go over well if she caught me with Axl of all people instead.
But when I catch a glance, all of the lights are off inside, indicating my parents have called it an early night.
Thank god.
“No, he was drinking quite a bit earlier. He’ll probably crash at Lou’s house,” Axl responds. “I was texting my dad. He’ll come get me.”
“Really?” I ask, my brows raising.
“Yeah, he’s like that. Doesn’t drink either. We’ll probably go somewhere to get a milkshake before heading home.”
Something sours in my stomach at that, something green and judgmental like jealousy. I can’t stop myself from feeling a tiny bit of envy, especially with all of the alcohol clouding my thoughts. “That’s cool.”
Silence falls over us once more, and the memory of what we did flashes behind my eyes.
I can still feel his hands on me, touching me like I’ve never been touched before.
I’ve never felt so exhilarated by someone else’s skin, how it left behind flaming streaks everywhere it touched.
My mind replays it all: His fingers tracing my walls, his breathy whisper by my ear, and our tongues tangled together as everything spins around us.
My cheeks flame, and I clear my throat.
“Um… so about earlier,” I start.
“Yeah?” he says, turning to me. I nearly flinch at the attentiveness in his gaze. It makes me feel vulnerable, like there’s a buzzing under my skin as he watches me.
“What we did was a mistake.”
There’s a second of silence, and then Axl chuckles darkly. “So, we’re still doing this?”
I stammer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This little back and forth,” he supplies, motioning between us. “I mean, it’s almost ten years in the making now, why not go another ten? I can take it.”
My eyes widen. “You’re such an—”
“Asshole? Freak? Not enough for Miss Second Avenue?” He gestures to my childhood home. “So I’ve heard. Just keep repeating the things you’ve been told about me. I know you’re curious about me, about the things you don’t know. You can admit it.”
I shake my head and lie. “I’m not curious. I am appalled.”
He laughs again. “Sure, Little Reckoning. Whatever you say.”
My face flushes pink at the nickname, my scent very much prevalent. I’m sure he can smell the arousal between my legs from our little indiscretion, especially now that we’re in such a small enclosed space.
I squeeze my legs together and give my best bitch face. “I don’t know where you get off on spewing absolute bullshit.”
“Was it not obvious when you had your tongue down my throat?” he asks, his voice turning into a dark husk.
My skin prickles with sweat from the intensity in his brown eyes.
“But, I didn’t mind. You can have your tongue wherever you want.
Or, if you want me to put my tongue somewhere, I’m sure that can be arranged. ”
A scared whimper travels up my throat, but I swallow it down before he can hear how his words affect me. I hiss at him, “I don’t want your tongue anywhere.”
“No?” he asks. “Because I certainly do. I’ve been dreaming about it for years… what it would be like to sink between your thighs.”
Red alert, red alert. We’re in dangerous territory now. I need to retreat and I need to do it immediately. I need him to leave before my resolve caves in and my body betrays me.
But somehow, that thought is on the back burner as his gaze holds me captive. His stormy scent is strong, and I can’t help the way it pulls at every sensitive nerve ending, rendering every defense in my arsenal useless.
When the silence drags on, he sighs. “We are whatever you want to be. You just have to let me know what you decide.” Those words, combined with the sincerity in Axl’s tone, make something swoop in my stomach.
“We’re not anything,” I say, but my voice is shaky.
“Okay,” Axl says, no longer having the same fight in his eyes that he had moments before. He fiddles with one of his drumsticks in his hand, a tick that screams of his nervousness. “But… we have always wanted each other. Can you admit that at least?”
My first instinct is to shake my head. Deny, deny, deny. I’ve been pretending for so long, but the vulnerability in his features makes something in my heart crack. For some reason, I know I can’t lie again. “If we didn’t live in this stupid town—”
“Hm… is that supposed to make me feel better? That if it wasn’t for this town, these people, you would be open about wanting me?” His head moves back to face the road. “Save it.”
“Axl—”
“I thought it was freak,” he spits with venom that I absolutely deserve.
“For so long, I’ve pictured what it would be like to actually have you.
To be able to hold your hand in the halls, to sit with you at the local bistro—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
“And I was fine with this. Our secret looks. The hidden moments we were allowed to have.”
My brows raise at that. His version of events feels much more romantic. To me, it’s been torture. Every moment in this town has been one big acting lesson. I can’t be myself or people will stare, and I don’t want that.
But it seems like while I was working overtime to stay out of everyone’s line of sight, Axl has had his right on me. Watching, waiting, until I’m ready to close the gap between us that I’ve kept open for so long.
“But I don’t want that anymore, Stacey.”
I freeze. “You don’t?”
“Not after tonight,” he whispers, a darkness shimmering in his gaze. “Not after discovering what you taste like. Not after knowing what you look like coming on my fingers.”
I stare at him, my heart racing, sweat collecting on my brow.
Fuck, I feel like I’m about to go into heat like an omega… but that’s not it. He just pulls this reaction from my body. Anytime he is around, I have to tighten my defenses because he knows his way through every wall. He always has.
“I won’t be able to keep the desire you provoke within me in a box anymore, my beautiful reckoning.
And I shouldn’t have to.” A flash of light comes from down the road, a silver Toyota pulling up in front of us.
I suddenly feel sick, like there wasn’t enough time.
Axl looks at me, flashing a small smile that doesn’t completely reach his eyes.
“If you decide to… pick up where we left off, I’ll be waiting.
If not… don’t expect me to be there anymore. For both of our sakes.”
I watch him get out of the car, his strides casual as he walks toward his dad’s car. I feel myself crumble, desperate to reach into the past and pluck the memory back into the present. I want to take everything we said to each other back and return to the way things were.
But on the other hand, everything feels heightened. The stress breeds with excitement in my chest, and I realize that I’ve been lying dormant for a long time.
It might be time to finally wake up.